Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a controlling apparatus and an inspection method for inspecting printed matter produced by a printing apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
In the commercial printing market such as Print On Demand (POD), various types of printed matter can be produced according to various needs. Greater importance is placed on efficient inspections of the various types of printed matter.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-94899 discloses a method of efficiently inspecting a printed image by appropriately interrupting continuously-input print jobs with printing of a predetermined inspection image and an inspection process. According to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-94899, the printing of the inspection image and the inspection process are carried out each time pages or copies are output in a predetermined number based on a print job.
Incidentally, in a printing apparatus capable of printing images on print media of various types and sizes in various forms such as recent POD equipment, printing is carried out by changing operations of mechanisms included in the printing apparatus for each job. For example, a conveying path or conveying rollers to be used may be changed according to whether simplex printing or duplex printing is selected. Further, a paper feed unit and a discharging unit are changed in the case of using a print medium of a different size or type. Furthermore, whether to use a fixing unit and a fan may be determined and a printing speed may be changed according to the type of print medium.
It should be noted that the above changes of the mechanism operations occur irregularly in response to input jobs. Accordingly, there is a case where a mechanism that has not been used for a long time is used again depending on the condition of an input job. In this case, the possibility of any problem in an image is higher than usual until the operation of the mechanism is stabilized. If an inspection is carried out at intervals of a predetermined number of copies or pages as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-94899, a problem may occur at the time when a print job is switched to a new one because the timing of the inspection is irrelevant to the timing of the change of the mechanisms.